JewelFreak
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2009
- Messages
- 7,768
If you're an art lover, the Denver Museum has a stupendous exhibition on van Gogh, running till January. I can't recommend it highly enough for anybody in the area. Last weekend, after reading 2 articles, I hopped a flight out there. I'm still floating on air after seeing it.
Called "Becoming van Gogh," it takes his career from his decision at 27 to become an artist -- with zero previous training or experience -- to his final painting, done 2 weeks before he died. The commentary is so intelligent! Exerpts from letters to his brother Theo interweave with info from 2 or 3 van Gogh experts to show how he commenced with a "Learn to Draw" book, hard to believe! and guide the viewer through his thoughts and development on figures, nature, color, technique. Early, very awkward, sketches flow into experiments with different media, then to his arrival at painting with, & mastery of, oils. Along the way you see the influence of other artists he met in France -- with paintings by Seurat, Pissaro, etc., demonstrating how they impacted his work.
The exhibit brings alive van Gogh's growth in only 10 years from an unskilled amateur to the vibrant painter he became -- and how he augmented his own vision with techniques from others, synthesizing them into his unique style.
This show was a real labor of love for the curator who put it together; he spent 7 years constantly hopping around the globe, trying to persuade collectors to lend their paintings to a rather obscure museum in the American West. Many seemed to think the buffalo still roamed its halls & were reluctant to risk their valuable art.
Superb job -- a chance to see how ambition to create beauty succeeded in the face of the challenges faced by this unhappy man. Go if you can!
--- Laurie
Called "Becoming van Gogh," it takes his career from his decision at 27 to become an artist -- with zero previous training or experience -- to his final painting, done 2 weeks before he died. The commentary is so intelligent! Exerpts from letters to his brother Theo interweave with info from 2 or 3 van Gogh experts to show how he commenced with a "Learn to Draw" book, hard to believe! and guide the viewer through his thoughts and development on figures, nature, color, technique. Early, very awkward, sketches flow into experiments with different media, then to his arrival at painting with, & mastery of, oils. Along the way you see the influence of other artists he met in France -- with paintings by Seurat, Pissaro, etc., demonstrating how they impacted his work.
The exhibit brings alive van Gogh's growth in only 10 years from an unskilled amateur to the vibrant painter he became -- and how he augmented his own vision with techniques from others, synthesizing them into his unique style.
This show was a real labor of love for the curator who put it together; he spent 7 years constantly hopping around the globe, trying to persuade collectors to lend their paintings to a rather obscure museum in the American West. Many seemed to think the buffalo still roamed its halls & were reluctant to risk their valuable art.
Superb job -- a chance to see how ambition to create beauty succeeded in the face of the challenges faced by this unhappy man. Go if you can!
--- Laurie
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